


Go Out On A High Note

by paperstorm



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, fetus 5sos, muke if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 04:31:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4465520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperstorm/pseuds/paperstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The song is still unpolished and he’s iffy on a few lines, but it’s finished enough for Calum to feel like he actually did this. Even if it sucks, which it very definitely does, he wrote a song. A whole song. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Go Out On A High Note

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mukeofficial](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mukeofficial/gifts).



> Iris made me do this. Send all hate mail to her.  
> [title is from the song Gotta Get Out][which I cannot listen to][because the feels are too strong]

Calum has never written a song before.   
   
He’s never even thought about doing it. He’s never considered it as an option, as something that existed on the list of possibilities for his life. He’s never done a lot of things. Walked on the moon. Ridden an elephant. These are not things he’s upset about. They’re things he’ll probably never do and he doesn’t care because he never expected to. He never expected to write a song. He’s supposed to be a football player. That’s the thing about all this. Music was always Mali’s thing. She’s so good at it, she always has been. Calum can carry a tune, sure, but that certainly isn’t anything note-worthy. He isn’t meant to be a musician. Calum is supposed to be the next Tim Cahill, not like … the next John Farnham.   
   
Here’s what happened, though. Michael stopped hating that Hemmings kid. For a year of his life, Calum could set his watch around two things. One, Mali was going to sing in her room loud enough to deafen and constantly enough to irritate and wouldn’t stop no matter how much Calum begged her to, and two, Calum’s best friend was going to hate a scrawny blond boy called Luke more than cats hate dogs, and refuse tell anyone why. It was comforting, really. It was something he could count on. The sun rose in the morning and set in the evening and Michael hated Luke Hemmings. Calum hated him too, although more by association than culpability. The kid was kind of goofy looking, and he was a bit weird because he was so quiet, but he never wronged Calum specifically. Calum just hated him because Michael hated him, and that’s in the best friend code. Michael would have done the same thing.  
   
Then, out of nowhere – or at least nowhere Calum was invited – after a  _year_ , suddenly reality did a summersault and Michael wouldn’t shut up about Luke. It was like being shoved into Opposite Day, that dumb game kids used to play, but one that wouldn’t end. Michael would go on and on about Luke, how talented he was, that he wasn’t quite as good at guitar as Michael was but a much better singer, that he was funny, that he was a bit shy but he was really cool once you got to know him, that he had an awesome dog and two older brothers and a mum that was cool if Michael stayed there overnight sometimes, that they were going to start a band. A  _band_. They were gonna be the next All Time Low, if Michael had any say in it. Calum never understood Michael’s obsession with that band. Good Charlotte were way better.   
   
“Okay,” Calum had said, so as not to hurt Michael’s feelings by pointing out it was kind of a stupid idea. Everyone wants to be in a band, and how many of them actually make it out of Australia? Like. Almost none. So few the list is barely worth making.   
   
“You could be in it, too,” Michael had told him, a funny look on his face that Calum thought meant it wasn’t a sincere sentiment. Michael just felt bad, because they’d been best friends for years and now Michael was replacing him. And Michael was a socially inept recluse most of the time but even he knew that wasn’t cool.  
   
“Okay,” Calum said again. It wasn’t serious. He wasn’t serious, and neither were they.   
   
Calum went back to football, and tried at least not to let it show that he was burned up with jealousy for the small blond kid that stole his friend. He felt it, but he certainly wasn’t going to let Michael  _see_  that. Or Luke, for that matter. It would be worse if Luke saw it.  
   
They sort of became friends, the three of them. Luke was nice enough. Quiet, like Michael said, but friendly. But Calum was into sports, and Michael and Luke were into music, so they didn’t fit all that well. Michael and Luke started covering songs, just the two of them and their acoustic guitars, and putting them on YouTube. And people were actually watching them. Calum watched them too, and he had to admit they were pretty good. Roughly cut together and full of mistakes and nervous laughter when one of them fucked up, but still good. Michael’s always been better than anyone Calum knows on his guitar. All that time alone in his room paid off. And Luke’s voice, just like Michael said, was really good. Unpolished. A bit shaky. Not as good as Mali’s because he didn’t have her training. But he had talent. He wasn’t amazing then but he  _could_  be. One day.   
   
They approached Calum again, after months of this, to ask him again to join them. It felt real the second time.   
   
“We’re not just messing around,” Michael told him, more serious than Calum had ever seen him. “We’re actually pretty good.”  
   
“I know. I’ve watched the videos. You’re great.”  
   
Luke had blushed, and glanced at Michael. He was always blushing, Calum noticed that right away. He was always looking at Michael, too, in this shy, unsure way, like he was waiting for the go-ahead before he so much as said a word. He wanted approval from Michael for just, like, existing. It was pathetic, it looked like puppy love. Calum wanted to roll his eyes, but also wanted to tie Luke up in bubble wrap because he had that air about him, that if some moron called him a bad name in the hallway he might just shatter like glass. He was the kind of person you wanted to protect. Maybe that’s why Michael was drawn to him in the first place. Maybe Luke needed Michael in a way Calum didn’t.   
   
“Thank you,” Luke had said, in a small voice.  
   
“Okay, but,” Michael began, his round eyes widening dramatically like he was about to say something important. “You gotta get on board.”  
   
“Why?”  
   
“Because we wanna be a band, Cal. Like a real one. It has to be more than two of us.”  
   
“I don’t really play,” Calum had pointed out. It wasn’t entirely true. He did have an old acoustic guitar, but he wasn’t very good on it. It was mostly for mucking around on, for fun. For music class. To keep him away from drugs, probably, is what his parents intended when they bought it for him at a second-hand music store near their house.  
   
“You should be the bass player,” Michael had suggested. “Bass is only four strings, it’s easier to learn.”  
   
“You don’t think I could learn six strings?” Calum had protested, his ego wounded at the suggestion. Like Michael and Luke were capable of learning something and he wasn’t? Please. He was a football star. All Michael had ever done until like three months ago is play his Xbox alone in his room and get bad grades.   
   
“You  _could_ , we just don’t need another guitar. We need a bass.” Michael exchanged a knowing look with Luke, like they’d expected resistance. Like they’d discussed it beforehand. Calum frowned. He didn’t like feeling left out of the joke.  
   
“You need a drummer too, if you’re gonna be a  _real_  band,” Calum had said, mocking just a little because Michael deserved it for ditching him.  
   
“We’ll find one of those too. Will you stop being so dumb?” Michael had smacked his hand flat on the table. “Look, you know the reason I never played with you is because you were off playing football. I asked you to join us, months ago, remember? You looked at me like I was stupid, so I didn’t bring it up again until now. Believe it or not, we’re not just being nice or something. We actually want you in the band.”  
   
Calum had narrowed his eyes and searched Michael’s face for signs of dishonesty. He’d become skilled over the years at detecting untruths in Michael’s green eyes, and he didn’t see any just then. “Really?”  
   
“Really,” Luke piped up. “It would be great.”  
   
Secretly, Calum thought it would be great too, so he only made them suffer for a day or two, as punishment for not asking him sooner, before he agreed to join. Michael came up with a name – or at least he said he did, but he smiled that stupid secret smile with Luke as he said it, so Calum suspected they’d actually come up with it together and just didn’t want to say that. Calum still envied the bond the two of them had that he wasn’t quite part of – and it was kind of a dumb name,  _five seconds of summer_ , but Michael is stubborn as hell and once he’d decided that’s who they were there was no talking him out of it. Calum wondered if maybe Luke thought it was dumb too, but just didn’t say anything because he never disagrees with Michael. The two of them, honestly. Calum didn’t know what he’d gotten himself into.   
   
And now he’s writing a song. Or, at least he’s trying to. Pop punk songs are supposed to be angsty, but Calum’s life is kind of boring. His parents love each other and he isn’t on drugs and he’s never really had his heart broken, so he isn’t sure how many places there are to go with this. He does want to get out of Sydney. That’s a start. There are punk song about wanting to leave your town, and Calum feels that. It’s what football was supposed to do for him. He was supposed to become a big star and see the world, so if he’s going to be a rock star instead, that’s a good place to start.  
   
It takes him almost two weeks to finish it. Writing is harder than Calum thought. Every time he came up with a lyric he second-guessed himself about it for the rest of the day. The song is still unpolished and he’s iffy on a few lines, but it’s finished enough for Calum to feel like he actually did this. Even if it sucks, which it very definitely does, he wrote a song. A whole song. It makes him feel like he really does belong in this band. They’re barely a band at this point, but Calum still feels like a bit of an outsider. He wasn’t there from the beginning. This was Luke and Michael’s thing, and then Calum came along later like an afterthought. Luke and Michael are both better than him on their guitars, too, although Calum is improving. And they’re just all  _Luke and Michael_  about everything, with their secret looks and the things they say to each other sometimes that Calum doesn’t understand and they won’t explain. He has this, though. He wrote a song. Neither Michael or Luke have ever written a song.  
   
He sits on it for another week. He doesn’t tell them he wrote anything. They record another cover, an All Time Low song Calum had never heard before – Michael is  _obsessed_  with them, he might honestly have a crush on Jack Barakat, or maybe on Luke, Calum can’t tell – but they don’t post it because it doesn’t turn out the way they wanted. Calum didn’t want to be the one to say it, so he’s glad when Luke speaks up.  
   
Eventually he tells Mali, and her dark eyes go wide and she instantly demands he play it for her, so he does. They sit on the bed in her room, and Calum plucks out the melody on his old acoustic because he doesn’t actually have a bass yet. He doesn’t look at her while he sings, because she’d make him forget the words. His fingers slip over the strings because he’s nervous, but he gets through it. There’s only silence when he’s done, and Calum chews at the inside of his cheek and prepares for her to let him down gently. He should have known he wouldn’t be good at this.  
   
Music was always Mali’s thing.  
   
“Oh … my God,” she breathes.  
   
Calum winces and looks up at her, his forehead twisted in an embarrassed frown. “That bad, huh? Maybe my next one will be better.”  
   
“Calum!” she cries, shoving his shoulder, and not lightly. “Are you for real? It’s good!”  
   
Calum blinks. “Wait, really?”  
   
“Really, really.” She smiles at him, the ear-to-ear kind that crinkles the skin around her eyes the same way it does on Calum. They both look so much like their mum. “Cal, it’s awesome. Like, you guys could record that. You  _should_  record it. The lyrics are so nice, why didn’t you tell me you could write like that?”  
   
“I didn’t know,” Calum says honestly. “I’ve never tried it before.”  
   
“Are you gonna play it for the boys?”  
   
“I guess so. If you promise it doesn’t suck.”  
   
“I  _promise_  it doesn’t suck. It is the opposite of suck. It’s amazing.”  
   
Calum presses his lips together and smiles.  
   
The next day, he tells Luke and Michael. They’re in the library, taking advantage of a free period. Or, well, Luke and Calum have a free period. Michael should be in Biology. He hates school, and he likes to think skipping makes him punk rock. It doesn’t. Everybody skips. Even Luke, and he’s the whitest piece of white bread Calum’s ever met when it comes to following the rules.  
   
“You did  _what_?” Michael yells, punctuating his words with a fist slammed onto the table that earns them a harsh shush and a murderous glare from the seven-hundred year old librarian.  
   
“Keep it down!” Calum hisses.  
   
Michael just raises his eyebrows and makes a stupid face like he wants Calum to shut up and tell them about the song.  
   
“It’s called  _Gotta Get Out_. And it’s about, like … I don’t know.” Calum sighs, and fidgets in his chair. He picks at a loose thread on the cuff of his sleeve. “Like, having dreams that are too big for this place.”  
   
When he chances a glance at his friends, Luke and Michael are doing the thing where they converse with just their eyes. They both look excited, though, so Calum doesn’t mind this time.  
   
“That sounds fucking  _perfect_!” Michael says, still being way too loud. Someone at another table grumbles something to her friend about  _that stupid Clifford boy_   _and his entourage._ Calum wants to throw a book at her. He is no one’s entourage. “It sounds like something Alex would write!”  
   
“Oh, are you on a first-name basis with Alex Gaskarth now?” Calum asks, rolling his eyes. “Like you guys are bros or something?”  
   
Michael ignores him. “Do you have your guitar?”  
   
“Here?” Calum frowns. “No. Why?”  
   
“Whatever, you can use mine. At my house. C’mon, no one’s home right now.”  
   
“We’re leaving?” Luke asks, speaking for the first time since the conversation began.  
   
“We have to hear the song!” Michael yells, and then he’s up out of his chair and heading out of the library without even looking behind himself to see if Luke or Calum are following him. He just naturally assumes they will, because they always do.  
   
Calum is even more nervous to play it for them than he was for his sister. Her opinion means more to his heart, but theirs means more to the band. If they like it, they might play it all together. They might even record it one day. If they don’t like it, maybe they’ll never let him write another song again. Michael makes him sit in a chair in the living room so he and Luke can sit across from him on the couch and watch him like hawks eyeing their prey. It’s exactly how Calum feels, but he pushes through it. His voice shakes, it isn’t ever that good anyway, but he makes it all the way to the end. He doesn’t look away this time, like he did with Mali, he watches them as they watch him. He watches happily as their faces light up. He sees an enormous smile make Luke’s eyes turn the color of the ocean on a sunny day. He forgets the words at one point when he’s watching them look at each other with wide eyes and slightly open mouths, unspoken words passing between them again but this time, Calum understands exactly what they’re saying. He’s in on it this time.  
   
So maybe music can be Calum’s thing too.

**Author's Note:**

> [follow me on tumblr if you want!](http://paper-storm.tumblr.com/)


End file.
